Looking for a way to make tablet sized Display of energy usage based on ISY, SEP and Variable input

[LFMc]

Correct, the goal is an always on tablet that is running the Node Red Electricity Dashboard in the foreground and probably Agave in the background. So that I can get more buy-in and engagement from the wife and occasional family visitor. And it is a bit of a showy piece to create some discussion on how home automation can save money. 

 

As to setting up the Pi for Node Red, I just started fresh and imaged the OS as soon as it was updated, from there when Node Red wasn't doing what I want, I just kept plugging away with "solution" after "solution" until something worked to get it running correctly. I honestly don't know what happen, but I can tell you the last thing I did, I had done it at least once before. So right now, my approach to getting Node-Red to work is like walking into a totally dark room, bump into a bunch of stuff and finally stumble out the back door two days later. (-;

 

FYI, Node-Red is included and "working" on the Raspbian OS. The documentation and forum support on Node-Red does seem to be a bit sparse, so there was a lot of trial and error getting some commands working. 

 

I will include some notes and how to's in the future but there is a some behind the scenes variables that come from my prior ISY programming of my energy monitoring system.

 

I still would be interested if anyone else has the Zigbee option and is interested in doing something similar. Please let me know.

[Teken]

I have ZigBee but it's tied to my Brultech GEM. My goal is similar to yours regarding energy display and awareness. Besides that my other goal was to display other infrastructure metrics that have no other visual display capabilities.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LFMc]

If you have the Zigbee (ZS) option on the ISY, then the emeter data stream is open and ready for access (obviously) by any number of programs. I would assume that it can be used by Node Red regardless of the presence of the Brultech system. Also, you can have multiple SEP devices attached and reading the smartmeter. At least you can with my TDU. 

 

If the Brultech is your network SEP connection to the meter and not the ISY, then I am clue-less to what you would do to get around that with Node-Red. 

[Teken]

If you have the Zigbee (ZS) option on the ISY, then the emeter data stream is open and ready for access (obviously) by any number of programs. I would assume that it can be used by Node Red regardless of the presence of the Brultech system. Also, you can have multiple SEP devices attached and reading the smartmeter. At least you can with my TDU. 

 

If the Brultech is your network SEP connection to the meter and not the ISY, then I am clue-less to what you would do to get around that with Node-Red. 

 

You and I are using two different aspect of the Energy Module from the ISY Series Controller. You have a direct link to your smart meter from the POCO. I don't have a smart meter but use the Brultech GEM to track, monitor, and relay those metrics to the ISY Series Controller. The Brultech Dash Box offers all of the visual gauges, dial, charts, and graphs for me.

 

The goal was to use your working example to offer another visual method as a proof of concept. If it could be done with very little effort and hardware cost the goal was to harness this charting program for other hardware appliances I have on site now. I'm always eager to learn and use open source applications if and where it makes sense.

[LFMc]

You mean yous still have a meter guy that comes out, opens your fence gate, crosses your yard and avoids your dogs just to read your meter?  That's quaint. 

[Teken]

You mean yous still have a meter guy that comes out, opens your fence gate, crosses your yard and avoids your dogs just to read your meter?  That's quaint. 

 

Actually I've never laid eyes on the meter reader in the (approx.) nine years I lived in this home. I am sure it has to do with the fact his herd of reindeer don't make a lot of noise flying in the sky until touch down. I believe the same phenomenon is related to that really jolly guy who still thinks he's thin enough to slide down the chimney!

 

Then again I think he past our house last year because the GF thought the guy in red was getting a little fat. 

 

So she decided to bake some of those (hipster) no sugar, no gluten, peanut free, low cholesterol cookies!  

 

Lets just to say, I gather the new hipster cookies didn't go down very well with the jolly guy in red!

[fisix]

Correct, the goal is an always on tablet that is running the Node Red Electricity Dashboard in the foreground and probably Agave in the background. So that I can get more buy-in and engagement from the wife and occasional family visitor. And it is a bit of a showy piece to create some discussion on how home automation can save money. 

 

As to setting up the Pi for Node Red, I just started fresh and imaged the OS as soon as it was updated, from there when Node Red wasn't doing what I want, I just kept plugging away with "solution" after "solution" until something worked to get it running correctly. I honestly don't know what happen, but I can tell you the last thing I did, I had done it at least once before. So right now, my approach to getting Node-Red to work is like walking into a totally dark room, bump into a bunch of stuff and finally stumble out the back door two days later. (-;

 

FYI, Node-Red is included and "working" on the Raspbian OS. The documentation and forum support on Node-Red does seem to be a bit sparse, so there was a lot of trial and error getting some commands working. 

 

I will include some notes and how to's in the future but there is a some behind the scenes variables that come from my prior ISY programming of my energy monitoring system.

 

I still would be interested if anyone else has the Zigbee option and is interested in doing something similar. Please let me know.

 

 

Just wanted to chime in that I'm interested and will be jumping on this.... as soon as I can get UD to send me a SEP Zigbee addon.  Apparently they're out of stock currently (or were a few weeks ago) and the ETD was sometime in late November, if before later in December.  Sigh.

 

I use Pi's all over the house.  I currently use one for a dedicated OwnCloud server, and I'm hoping I can manage to use that for the Node Red engine as well.  I have an aged android tablet I can (releaseably) mount on a wall to display the usage.  That's pretty much my dream - being able to walk around and turn stuff on and off by hand and watching semi-real time usage changes flowing through the meter.

 

If the time resolution isn't satisfying enough (not sure what I'll get from my meter, the gossip is 5min intervals), I'll be attempting to supplement with a few scratch-built clamp-meter->wifi IoT things for display and tracking purposes - I'll still be attempting to use the Zigbee SEP addon to link ISY control with usage trends.

 

Well, that's my plan, anyway.

 

[LFMc]

Just wanted to chime in that I'm interested and will be jumping on this.... as soon as I can get UD to send me a SEP Zigbee addon.  Apparently they're out of stock currently (or were a few weeks ago) and the ETD was sometime in late November, if before later in December.  Sigh.

 

I use Pi's all over the house.  I currently use one for a dedicated OwnCloud server, and I'm hoping I can manage to use that for the Node Red engine as well.  I have an aged android tablet I can (releaseably) mount on a wall to display the usage.  That's pretty much my dream - being able to walk around and turn stuff on and off by hand and watching semi-real time usage changes flowing through the meter.

 

If the time resolution isn't satisfying enough (not sure what I'll get from my meter, the gossip is 5min intervals), I'll be attempting to supplement with a few scratch-built clamp-meter->wifi IoT things for display and tracking purposes - I'll still be attempting to use the Zigbee SEP addon to link ISY control with usage trends.

 

Well, that's my plan, anyway.

 

 

Not sure where you live and who your TDU is, but in Texas we have Oncor. They have a web site that you register and then load the ID for your SEP device. Once you do that and they approve it and then you can communicate with the meter. The current ISY Dashboard allows you to tweak the Smartmeter response time. I think the default is every 10 or so seconds. I backed mine off to once every thirty seconds to slow down the data. It can be like drinking out of a fire hose. You can see the data via the REST interface.  From there I use CURL and some batch files to query the data for the items I want and stuff them into the ISY variables once an hour. Then I can do a lot of programming around them. 

 

So with Node Red, I also query the SEP smart meter data stream thru the ISY and parse the data I want from it. Also use Node Red to pull variables from the ISY and use those on my Node Red dashboard. 

 

While I don't have usage feedback on the different circuits of my house power (like Teken does with his Brueltech system), I haven't missed it. Once you get used to your baseline numbers it pretty easy to see from the dashboards by looking at the instantaneous power being consumed what's running and what isn't.

 

FYI, I found a distributor who stocks the ZS ISY units and they actually gave me a great trade in for my basic ISY unit. So I didn't have to touch my hardware and I ended up with a PRO and IR unit to boot. 

[LFMc]

I finished up my Power Management Dashboard project and posted it in a separate thread. Here is the link if you are interested. https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/23072-creating-a-power-management-console-for-the-isy-zs-option-with-node-red/

[fisix]

I finished up my Power Management Dashboard project and posted it in a separate thread. Here is the link if you are interested. https://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/23072-creating-a-power-management-console-for-the-isy-zs-option-with-node-red/

 

Thanks Leon!  Also, which distributor stocks the ZS ISY units?  And are they the SEP enabled versions?  UDI isn't stocking them again yet, and I'm getting antsy about trying to use one...

[LFMc]

Thanks Leon!  Also, which distributor stocks the ZS ISY units?  And are they the SEP enabled versions?  UDI isn't stocking them again yet, and I'm getting antsy about trying to use one...

 

I got mine from Orchestrated home www.orchestratedhome.com. They were extremely helpful and offered me a trade in on my basic unit. It is a Zigbee enabled unit, but only for SEP (Smart Energy Protocol?), so don't make the mistake I did and think that it will talk to other regular Zigbee devices. I did have to buy an SEP repeater for mine as it could not reach the 50 feet to the meter. I got that from Smartenit.com .